FIRST COURSE: Half demon/half witch, Rosie Storm, takes a vacation from fighting with her boyfriend.

ENTRÉE:Hot hybrid, Carnal, meets Rosie and instantly knows no one else will do.

DESSERT: The table is set for making sweet magic together.

Taste Test

“So you made good on your promise and left.”

Rosie stopped polishing the bar and looked down at the cloth she was holding in her hand. “Yeah.” The cat jumped up to the end of the bar effortlessly, pranced between them waving her tail like a challenge, and sat herself down right in front of Carnal. When he reached out to pet her, the cat purred loudly while giving Rosie a look so full of malice that she understood why humans had once thought animals could be possessed by evil spirits. Rosie drew a cider and set it in front of Carnal.

He laughed at that. “Do you have a fantasy about me coming to you crying, Rosie?”

The cat squinted its eyes in an expression that resembled gloating. “Bitch,” said Rosie, as she turned away.

“What?”

Over her shoulder she said, “That cat. She hates me.”

He looked down at the cat like she couldn’t possibly be talking about the same animal. “Catty Kay?” Carnal grinned and the cat purred even louder, partially closing her repulsive yellow eyes. “She’s a sweetheart.”

“She’s a monster in a fur fucking coat.”

Carnal was about to laugh out loud, but when Rosie passed by them, the cat reached out and drew blood by slashing her bare arm with claws bared. Rosie hissed in a breath at the sting. When she waved her hand out of reflex, Catty Kay went flying through the air making a yeowling noise so ugly that Carnal wanted to cover his ears. The cat smashed against the far wall at the end of the bar then landed on her feet and began shaking her head like she had something stuck in an ear.

Carnal walked around the bar and went through the swinging doors to the kitchen. When he returned, Rosie was washing the cut with a clean rag.

“Here,” he said. “This will fix you right up.”

He held up a glass jar ointment. He took her hand and looked at the cut. “It’s not bad.” He began applying a small amount of the topical solution, whatever it was. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“What?”

He raised an eyebrow as if to say he didn’t have the patience for games. “How did you throw the cat against that wall?”

“How do you think? I picked it up and threw it.”

“That’s not what I saw.”

“Then that thing must have lulled you into a fugue state with that obnoxious sound it was making.”

Carnal looked confused. “You mean purring?”

“Yes. That.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I can’t help that.”

Carnal shrugged. “Okay. What can you help with?”

“You want something else?”

“Yes. I have an itch.”

“I saw a backscratcher in the cistern shower.”

“Not that kind of itch.”

“Let me put it another way. I can’t help you with any kind of itch.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why not? Your man isn’t around. And he’s not gonna be around. You said so yourself.”

She laughed. “That doesn’t make me automatically available.”

“Maybe not. But it does make you game. If you were mine, I’d never let you get away.”

She shook her head. “Moot point because I’m not ever going to be yours, Carnal.”

He smiled. “My mother is under the impression that I owe you an apology.”

“Hmmm.”

“I’m going to take that to mean you agree. So. Here I am saying sorry. I didn’t intend to make you feel unwanted.”

Rosie cocked her head to the side as Exiled so often did. When she realized she was unconsciously mimicking the gesture, she straightened.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to vet the people teaching your children.”

Carnal waited. When she said nothing more, he said, “But it’s not my place to do that. It’s Serene’s.”

“That’s between the two of you. I don’t have hard feelings about it.”

“Hard feelings. Yeah.” He looked around, took another drink, and said, “I don’t want you to have hard feelings.”

“Well I don’t.” He nodded. “So was there something else?”

“Yeah.” One side of his mouth lifted in a cocky smile. “I thought we might get together.”

Rosie’s brow furrowed. “Get together. You mean like on a date.”

“Not sure what that is, but I’m pretty sure you know what I mean.”

Rosie laughed in his face. “From what I hear you’ve got hordes of girls vying to date you. I don’t think ‘getting together’ with me is a great idea.”

Carnal grinned. “How old are you, Rosie?”

“Fourteen months. Why?”

He laughed. “No reason. I’d want to get together with you no matter how old you are. You don’t have to tell me your age.”

“Told you, Carnal. Go wade through the masses who are clawing for your attention.”

“Had my fill of chicklets. I want you.”

“Well, you can’t always get what you want.”He gave her a look that transformed his face from ruggedly handsome to mesmerizing. “I’m pretty sure I can.” He grinned.

stopped the genocide of a hundred and forty three human/animal hybrids, who'd been bred as a research experiment and spent their entire lives imprisoned. Against orders, he spirited them away to a dimension and gave them the job of protecting humans whose own hybrid experiment had escaped and become their nightmare.

Rosie Storm thought

She thought she was getting a few weeks of tantrum-fueled asylum. The last thing she was expecting was someone like Carnal.

Her paranormal romances come with uniquely fresh perspectives on "imaginary" creatures, characters, and themes. She adds a dash of scifi, a flourish of fantasy, enough humor to make you laugh out loud, and enough steam to make you squirm in your chair. Her heroines are independent femmes with flaws and minds of their own whether they are aliens, witches, demonologists, psychics, past life therapists. Her heroes are hot and hunky, but they also have brains, character, and good manners. **Usually.

Winner BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE SERIES three years in a row. (2013, 2014, 2015)